More on the Jack Weinstein gun lawsuits

Posted by David Hardy · 8 June 2008 10:36 AM

Interesting story in The Daily Report. Judge Weinstein, US District Court, denied jury trial to one of the dealers sued by Bloomberg. To be precise, he allowedly only an "advisory jury." That's a procedure in judge-only trials (of which there are a few narrow classes), where the judge takes the jury's verdict as "advice" in the course of entering his own verdict.

Going on memory, I think Weinstein is dead wrong in denying a jury. His theory appears to that the suit is for abatement of a public nuisance, the only remedy sought is injunction, and under State law, injunction trials are judge-only.

BUT this is a Federal case, and the 7th Amendment provides "In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved..." Nuisance is common law. As I recall, the courts assess the value of an injunction suit in terms of its money value, the dispute being whether you assess it by (a) its value to the plaintiff if he wins one, or (b) its cost to the defendant if he loses. I trust Bloomberg would not asset that if he wins the injunction would benefit NY by less than $20, and it's safe to say that the dealer's compliance cost would exceed $20. So the defendant dealer has not just a right, but a constitutional right, to a regular jury. Of course, Jack Weinstein is unlikely to allow a trifle like that to stand in his way.

Yes I too believe Judge Weinstein is wrong in denying a jury trial. It certainly violates the Constitution as written. But then again Judge Weinstein is wrong about just everything I can remember about him. This Fascist, as I mean it in the ugliest term, is of the belief that our Constitution is an Organic, i.e. living, document that must be interpreted according to an evoling standard."to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle" Woodrow Wilson

With 'evolving' standards we end up with those rights the state decides to give us as in Britain and Japan, China and North Korea.

Technically, you are not entitled to a jury in a case in equity -- meaning a case merely seeking an injunction rather than monetary damages. I'm sure Bloomberg's complaint was carefully pleaded to avoid the possibility that real citizens might get to decide the case.

The REAL scandal is that Judge Weinstein gets steered all anti-firearms cases in E.D.N.Y., notwithstanding the Federal Courts' supposed random assignment system. The reason is that under E.D.N.Y. local rules a litigant can get a case designated as "related" to another case simply by filing a letter with the clerk. And that letter is not given any scrutiny before the case is assigned.

But I suspect in the long run the Second Circuit will give Weinstein's crazy rulings the heave-ho. The sad part is all the time and money that will be wasted in the interim. A shame...

How does Weinstein end up with all these cases? Surely there is something amiss there. Don't know the assignment procedures, but every other court I've practiced in, assignment to a judge is largely a random practice. it seems that in NY, there is some corruption afoot - doesn't that give rise to a due process claim??

You can request a case gets assigned to a judge if he is working on something similar. This was abused to get this turd in charge of the first one, and now he can grab ALL of the Bloomburg harassment suits.

Weinstein denied the manufacturers a jury trial in the NAACP case (2003). In the City of NY v Beretta case he agreed the law required a constitutional jury trial in an equity case to decide liability. He reversed course in the dealer case.

The NYTimes last week was making a big deal out of the fact that one of the stores pleaded it out because they could not afford the trial. So yes it is a big deal that Weinstein gets these cases. And I am positive Bloomberg knows and counts on that.